Events

Brown and Murray Receive
Dean’s Recognition Professorships

Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient Marilyn Brown and the LCC Director of Graduate Studies, Janet Murray have been awarded Dean’s Recognition Professorships. Each termed professorship will be supported by funds of $50,000 each year for a period of three years.

Dean Sue Rosser explained the significance of the awards, "Marilyn Brown and Janet Murray have made tremendous contributions to their Schools, the Ivan Allen College, and Georgia Tech. In addition to holding national and international reputations for research impact in their respective fields of energy policy and digital media and humanities, each has helped to build programs at Georgia Tech. Marilyn has fostered cross-college initiatives in energy and sustainability, while Janet has built LCC’s Ph.D. program in Digital New Media.”

Marilyn Brown joined IAC as a Professor in the School of Public Policy in August 2006. Concurrently, she holds the title of Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her research focuses on the design and impact of policies aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies. She is a national leader in the analysis and interpretation of energy futures in the U.S., advising the nation’s most influential think tanks in energy and climate policy. In 2007, Brown was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Price for co-authorship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III Assessment Report on Mitigation of Climate Change.

Janet H. Murray is an internationally recognized interactive designer, the director of the Master’s and PhD Program in Digital Media within the School of Literature, Communications, and Culture (LCC), and a member of Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary GVU Center. Her seminal work, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, has been translated into five languages and is widely used as a roadmap to emerging broadband art, information, and entertainment environments. Her projects have been funded by IBM, Apple Computer, the Annenberg-CPB Project, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation.

The Dean’s Recognition Professors will begin to use the title and funds in spring semester, 2009.

CARE's Gayle to receive
Ivan Allen Jr. Prize

The Office of the Dean has announced this year’s recipient of the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service. Dr. Helene D. Gayle, President and CEO of CARE USA will be honored at the IAC Founder’s Day luncheon March 12th. Dr. Gayle’s address (free and open to the public) begins at 1:00pm in The Georgian Ballroom at The Biltmore.

The Ivan Allen Jr. Prize is awarded annually to individuals associated with Georgia who have contributed to the progress and service of society through fields relevant to the curriculum of Ivan Allen College. Previous recipients include former President Jimmy Carter, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, Ted Turner, and Lessie & Charles Smithgall.

An internationally recognized expert on health, development and humanitarian issues, Dr. Gayle has focused on social justice and equity. She spent 20 years with the CDC combating HIV/AIDS. She directed the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2006, she joined CARE, leading its efforts to end poverty through programs in more than 70 countries.

Bayor Recognized as Distinguished Editor

Ronald Bayor, Chair of the School of History, Technology, and Society, has been recognized by the international Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) as the 2008 Distinguished Editor.

CELJ is an international organization of scholarly humanities journals. In bestowing the Award to Bayor, CELJ highlighted the unanimous decision by their judges and lauded Bayor’s “many years of outstanding service” to the Journal of American Ethnic History.

Bayor was the founding editor of the Journal, which is the official publication of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. He focused the Journal on the process of migration, adjustment and assimilation, group relations, mobility, politics, culture, group identity, and other topics that illuminate the North American immigrant and ethnic/racial experience. 2008 marked Bayor's 24th year and final year as editor. He has passed the role on to a successor.

Giant Patent Database Enables Cutting Edge Innovation Research

Professors and graduate students who study innovation trajectories are eager to get their hands on the new PATSTAT database brought to Tech by the School of Public Policy (SPP) and the College of Management. The giant database enables exploration of patent data from more than 60 countries extending back decades and, for the U.S., extending back to the nineteenth century.

PATSTAT allows users testing theories of innovation to compare patent data across countries, over time, and for different jurisdictions. The ability to transform massive amounts of raw data into useable form will significantly enhance the formation of innovation policy recommendations by faculty in Public Policy, Economics, and International Affairs.

“Patents are key measurable indicators of innovation,” said Public Policy Professor John Walsh. “Having all this data will allow us to answer a lot of questions that we haven’t been able to answer before, especially globally, and relevant to how innovation is trending in different countries, regions, and fields.” Such studies might include tracking what countries are issuing patents for IBM, a comparison of patenting by innovation competitors such as the U.S., Japan, and Germany, or comparison by gender.

“Bringing PATSTAT on line has really been a venture in large-scale computing infrastructure,” explained Diana Hicks, Chair of the SPP. “We’ve been working for over a year to bring this to fruition. It is the latest in innovation research and new technologies and puts the Ivan Allen College on the cutting edge.”

LCC Research Group to Present at Tate Modern

Members of the Second Life Augmented Reality Group have been invited to participate in a digital arts symposium at London’s Tate Modern Gallery in June 2010.

The Group is comprised of Literature, Communications, and Culture (LCC) professors Jay Bolter and Michael Nitsche, Brittain Post-Doctoral Fellow Kathryn Farley, Digital Media graduate student Jenifer Vandagriff, and adjunct professor Blair MacIntyre. They will present findings from their first year of the study and participate in a round table discussion concerning computer-assisted art production.

Opened in London in 2000, Tate Modern is Britain’s national gallery of international modern art from 1900 onwards. The digital arts symposium is organized by the Thursday Club of Goldsmiths College, an interdisciplinary forum focusing on the theories and practices of responsive technologies in today’s cultural landscapes.

Rosser and Taylor link Women in Science to Economic Security

In an article featured in the Fall 2008 issue of the Harvard International Review, IAC Dean Sue V. Rosser and Zak Taylor, Assistant Professor at the Nunn School of International Affairs, make the case that increasing women's participation in U.S. science is a matter of economic security.

Read article “Economic Security: Expanding Women’s Participation in U.S. Science”

INTA’s Bowman Op Ed on
“The Cuban Revolution at 50”

As President-Elect Barack Obama surveys the diplomatic landscape in Latin America, ominous challenges appear. Recent U.S. policy in Latin America has resembled a game of checkers, with the Bush administration playing tit for tat. Once president, Obama should discard the checkers paradigm and replace it with chess - instead of reacting to events and policies in the region or moving without thinking ahead.

Read full editorial published December 29, 2008 in The Washington Times

LCC’s Pearce on “Crossing the (Gender) Divide”

Many of today's video games are shedding their decidedly male "skins" and reaching out to female players with both avatars and themes designed specifically for "girl gamers." And that's just the beginning. Avid gamers of the "gentler persuasion" are heading back to the classroom to earn advanced degrees in computer programming so they can create the games they, and others like them, have dreamed about playing.

Read full article published in the January, 2009 Delta Sky Magazine

Faculty Profile – Rajaa Aquil

Rajaa Aquil’s native Arabic is a top foreign language (along with Chinese) in demand in America. Her engagement as Assistant Professor guiding the Arabic language program in the School of Modern Languages (ML) was an important addition. Aquil initiated the program in fall ’08; enrollment for spring ’09 is up 25 percent.

“Arabic is problematic to teach and learn because it is two languages instead of one,” notes Aquil. “The modern standard Arabic often taught in the U.S. is used only for reading and writing and some news, but Arabs consider the use of modern standard in conversation to be patronizing.” That dichotomy is emphasized in Aquil’s program. “We read, write, and listen to some modern standard, but when we speak, we speak dialect.”

Aquil encourages culturally immersive experiences such as a recent cross-campus gathering for Arabic speakers. This semester, she added coursework in Arabic culture and Islam. Study Abroad and LBAT programs in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates will follow.

“I want to change the negative stereotypes people have because of 9-11,” says Aquil. “Arabs consider it a big scar in our history.”

Aquil earned her Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Georgetown University. She was a visiting assistant professor and coordinator of Arabic instruction at the University of Utah, the head of the Arabic component of the Linguistic Correlates of Proficiency project at the Center of Advanced Study of Languages at the University of Maryland, and a research assistant in Arabic language testing at the Center of Applied Linguistics. Her research focuses on the processing of connected spoken language and second language acquisition.

“When listening to a foreign language, it is hard to know where one word ends and another begins,” explains Aquil. “However, the patterns are not haphazard; there are rules, and they can be taught.”

Student Profile - Mitchell Scholarship Winner
Sarang Shah

IAC’s Sarang Shah has been awarded the 2009-2010 George J. Mitchell Scholarship. The Mitchell Scholarships are awarded annually to 12 Americans under the age of 30 to pursue a year of post-graduate study at any university in Ireland. Majoring in public policy and physics, Shah exemplifies the cross-disciplinary focus of the Ivan Allen College and Georgia Tech.

“I have always been interested in understanding how the universe works, but at the same time I have been deeply concerned with the way society functions. My sense of civic duty and helping my fellow human beings has led me to become involved in my community, study policy and politics, and also look for ways that my knowledge of physics can help me to understand public policy.”

A native of Acworth, Georgia, Shah has been active in a number of student initiatives encompassing environmental activism and political dialogue during his four years at Georgia Tech. He has also been a strong advocate in preserving free speech on campus, testifying before the State House Committee on Higher Education, and authoring a resolution opposing a bill that would inhibit free speech.

In addition to Shah’s political advocacy, he has conducted research in the field of theoretical neuroscience and developed textual analysis software to help map data. With the scholarship, he will study mathematical physics at University College Dublin.

IAC Student Among Atlanta's "20 Under 20"

IAC's Katayoun Kishi has been honored as one of twenty Atlanta students who are making a difference in their community. This is the first year of the recognition given by the Intown Atlanta newspaper and sponsored by Spelman College. The twenty students were honored at a reception at the Conant Center on January 5, 2009. Kishi is an International Affairs / Modern Languages (IAML) major. Read about her service work at Georgia Tech and in the community.